** Barclays sees a challenging outlook in 2025 for EU pharma, citing a macro rotation out of defensive names

** The recent downturn of sentiment in large-cap pharma companies and improving market outlook outside of the healthcare sector suggest that EU pharma won't outperform the market in 2025, it adds

** In 2025, the sector will focus on clinical catalysts, mergers and acquisitions and ongoing political uncertainty, like the possible appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the U.S.' secretary of health, it says

** But it does remain positive on the medium- to long-term outlook, given also a rise in clinical catalysts, inelastic product demand and greater revenue concentration in the U.S.

** The broker prefers Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca , keeping its "overweight" on both

** It says on AstraZeneca that its growth in the U.S. is expected to exceed that in China and it sees its valuation as attractive, despite the investigations in China still hanging over it

** It expects positive results from Novo Nordisk's drug CagriSema in December, while it sees a greater chance of the Catalent deal clearing post the U.S. election

(Reporting by Isabel Demetz)

((Isabel.demetz@thomsonreuters.com))